i don't think that's right. i don't want you to leave. >> and your mom is here. >> your mom. hi, mom. this is for you. a little gift for you from us. >> thank you. >> and a little cake. there are a couple more downstairs. >> go white sox. >> if it's way too early what time is it? >> kate's "morning joe." >> yay! the unemployment rate dropped below 8% for the first time in the obama presidency hitting 7.8% for september. but the raw job gains are tepid. will the below 8% news do much to change the economic perceptions of undecided voters in the final weeks before the election? meanwhile a shifted swagger as mitt romney waits to see if his numbers swing up after a

decisive debate. he certainly has a spring in his step out on the campaign trail. on the whole 47% comment that never came up at the debate romney says he was wrong. as for the president, he put some mileage between himself and the mile high city with much more fiery talk than anything we heard from him at the actual debate. but is the president's tough talk too little too late? good morning from washington. it's friday, october 5th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. we'll have much more on the new jobs numbers in minutes with economist mark zandi, texas senator kay bailey hutchison is here, and an exclusive this morning senior adviser to the president david plouffe. but first right to my first reads of the morning. we'll hear fromhe obama and romney campaigns on the jobs numbers. i'm sure a ton on the campaign trail. they're in the big three battleground states at some point shadowing each other yet again this morning in the old dominion and the president hits cleveland, ohio while romney goes to an evening rally at st.

pete in st. petersburg, florida. last night a very confident mitt romney and paul ryan whipped up their base in rural virginia and as much as the romney campaign is determined not to cloak their actual fireworks it wasn't exactly subtle. >> last night was an important night for the country because people got to -- got the chance to cut through all the attacks and counterattacks and all of the theatrics associated with a campaign and instead were able to listen to substance. >> romney also picked up the official endorsement of the nra. we didn't know they weren't supporting him. whose supporters were of course a major presence at that very raucous rally. see all the orange there? the campaign is trying to capitalize on momentum with new ads releasing four over the last 24 hours including a new ad in ohio promising a million new manufacturing jobs and a testimonial from a former unlv

star greg anthony a college basketball analyst for cbs sports. >> i voted for barack obama. i thought he would be a centrist. i really lost faith in him. i'm supporting mitt romney. he is a no excuse kind of guy and i think over the last four years we've heard enough excuses. >> bottom line question for romney is this. does his debate performance move the needle in the three big midwestern battleground states of ohio, iowa, and wisconsin? the romney campaign is clearly still wary about the toxic effect of the obama campaign's attacks on his personal wealth and also the damage of romney's own 47% comment. yesterday hailed as a hero in denver romney repeated one phrase he introduced on wednesday night, again and again and again. >> i saw the president's vision as trickle down government. trickle down government. trickle down government. trickle down government. trickle down government.

>> that trickle down government phrase looks like an attempt to neutralize attacks on his tax plan as just one more version of, quote, trickle down economics. romney did some major cleanup work yesterday on the comment that had been the most damaging to his campaign in the last few weeks, the 47% comment. >> clearly, in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you'll say something that doesn't come out right. in this case i said something that is just completely wrong. i absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that i care about a hundred percent. >> that's what he said. everything he said there he said was completely wrong. does raise this question. how many resets can a presidential nominee have? take a look at romney's shifting responses over the last three weeks on 47% to put it all in perspective. >> as i point out i recognize that among those that pay no tax

approximately 47% of americans i'm not likely to be highly successful with a message of lowering taxes. you know, it's not elegantly stated. let me put it that way. i am speaking off the cuff in response to a question. i've got a very effective campaign, doing a very good job. but not everything i say is elegant. i'm a president for 100% of the american people. that is the real percent people care about. not 99 versus one. not 47 versus anyone else. in this case i said something that is just completely wrong. >> three weeks to get to completely wrong. widely panned for a listless debate performance president obama tried to get his groove back a little bit on the campaign trail in denver and in madison, wisconsin yesterday with some on the way homer comebacks if you will, a day late. the president almost had to be prodded to rebut romney's defense on his tax plan wednesday night. yesterday he went right after romney. >> do you challenge what the governor just said about his own plan? >> well, for 18 months he's been

running on this tax plan. and now five weeks before the election he is saying that his big, bold idea is never mind. when i got on the stage, i met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney. the real mitt romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy and yet the fellow on the stage last night who looked like mitt romney said he didn't know anything about that. >> and though the president's face did some talking on wednesday night when romney unveiled this line, in fact, watch the president's facial expression in the split screen. i'm sure a lot of you thought the same thing i did, that he was going to come up with something. he didn't. but watch this. watch his facial expression carefully. >> you said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. look, i've been in business for 25 years. i have no idea what you're talking about.

i maybe need to get a new accountant but the idea that you get a break for shifting jobs overseas is simply not the case. >> you saw the eyebrow raise, the accountant thing. i'm sure all of you thought the same thing. he's going to k tax returns right? it wasn't until thursday that the president's grimace actually became a rejoinder. >> the guy onstage last night, he said he'd never heard of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. never heard of it. and he said if that's true he must need a new accountant. so now we know for sure that wasn't the real mitt romney because the real mitt romney is doing just fine with the accountant that he already has. >> the new strategy from the campaign was clear. the guy who showed up on wednesday night was not, quote, the real mitt romney. the president virtually accused him of lying. >> governor romney may dance around his positions. he may do a tap dance and a two step, but if you want to be

president, then you owe the american people the truth. >> briefing report is white house senior adviser david plouffe used the words dishonest or the phrase not being honest nearly a dozen times. that's also the message of a new ad on romney's tax plan from the obama campaign. >> why won't romney level with us about his tax plan which gives the wealthy huge new tax breaks? if we can't trust him here, how could we ever trust him here? >> the romney campaign has taken issue of course with what the obama campaign uses which is a tax policy center analysis. in that ad that draws on the -- to argue that mitt romney's tax plan depends on a $5 trillion tax cut that's not paid for. the conclusion they drew is the only way you offset those tax cuts over ten years, after handcuffing yourself on the pledges that romney has made to reduce tax rates across the board by 20% eliminating the alternative minimum tax and erasing the federal estate tax is to eliminate deductions that

will inevitably touch the middle class. the romney folks say the obama campaign and tax policy center created a strawman. the problem is the romney campaign hasn't created their own and responded with any detail on how they would do it. it becomes impossible at least politically once you account for the pledge handcuffs that romney has made. while the president didn't fully acknowledge he came up short last night, aides did indicate he'll be more prepared for the second debate. >> it's like a playoff in sports. you evaluate after every contest and you make adjustments and i'm sure that we will make adjustments. you can't allow someone to stand there and basically man handle the truth about their own record and ideas and about yours and not deal with that. >> i tell you, supporters i talked to at the denver rally were among those disappointed

with the president. >> i think he'll -- he could have done better. >> i think that president obama is -- needs to put his gloves on and fight back. >> i didn't know what was quite going on as far as, you know, maybe he is dealing with some crisis in the middle east. >> i think maybe he needs to rest. >> again, those were people that showed up for the president's rally in denver. all right. back to the breaking news of the morning. today's september report shows a bunch of things. a dramatic drop of the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 7.8%, the first time it has fallen below 8% since the president took office. so how do we get there? the economy added 114,000 jobs last month but in addition the labor department revised july and august numbers to show that 86,000 more jobs were added than previously thought. total unemployment rose by

873,000 jobs last month. that's the biggest one-month increase in nearly 30 years. and today's report snapped a string of 43 straight months of unemployment over 8%. now there's just one more report, jobs report out before the election. mark zandi is the chief economist for moody's analytics. all right, mark. i want to go through. we know the monthly numbers. but these revisions that happen all the time, the dramatic change, almost 500,000 people no longer in the employment rolls. over 800,000 folks though added to the employment rolls. but we say only 114,000 jobs were added. please explain. >> a lot of numbers. >> yes it is. >> bottom line if you add it all up, take a look at the data, it shows the job market is improving. it continues to improve. we're creating more jobs. more jobs across lots of different industries in parts of the country so we're making

progress. you know, it is important to point out that these numbers are very volatile month to month based on small surveys and this over states the case. it's not as strong as the data suggests but it makes a strong case that the economy is improving. >> when you have a 30-year -- the big gap, the big jump of 30 years and total number of people added to the employment rolls do you look at that and say, is that an outlier or do you think, this makes up for those weak jobs numbers over the last three or four months that you thought were under estimating what was out there? >> yeah, well i'll give you an economist's answer. both. i mean, this -- right? this over states the case. you know, if you look at the details of the 800,000 job gain, a little over half of that was people who are working part-time because they can't find a full-time job. so that's not, you know, a particularly good thing and is probably related to seasonal adjustment issues and measurement issues and will fall out of the data. having said that you still have

a big gain in looking over the past year, household employment is rising fairly steadily, solidly. i wouldn't say strongly but, you know, this isn't too bad. it shows the job market is steadily improving. >> when you looked at the different sectors, 44,000 added in health care, 17,000 in transportation, the big one here, 16,000 added in manufacturing. i remember when you and i talked last month manufacturing was a negative and i remember you basically questioned that number. you were shocked by it. >> chuck, i'm not sure. was it up or down? >> this time it was up and i think it was last month we had the surprise where manufacturing was down. >> you know, my view is manufacturing -- >> august versus september. my apologies. >> right. my view is that manufacturing is weakened in the last few months largely because of europe and the fallout on our exports which drive manufacturing. but, you know, i think our manufacturing businesses and the industry itself is very competitive and we're going to see a lot more job growth in manufacturing. maybe not next month or the

month after but over the next couple three or four years we'll get a boatload of jobs. they're high paying jobs and it's really important to middle america. >> 8%. did you think it would take this long? >> frankly no. as you know, i've been more optimistic about the economy's prospects but it feels, i have to tell you it feels really, really good that we're below 8% and headed in the right direction. >> mark zandi, moody's analytics. the guy we love to turn to every month on these jobs fridays. thank you very much. still ahead president obama's senior adviser david plouffe will be here just after the half hour. we'll get the white house take on the brand new jobs report but we'll also get what is going on with the new attacks on romney's honesty and whether that makes up for the president's denver debacle if you will. plus mitt romney's mysterious tax play. we've heard a lot of promises but not a lot of details. first, a look ahead at those schedules. the president, mitt romney, virginia, florida, ohio all there. they'll both be in virginia

where they start their day. the president then heads to cleveland. mitt romney to st. petersburg. i-4. you know the story. swing voters. we'll be right back. weather? the answer? a lot less. the great american fix-up is going on now... ...with new projects every week and big savings every day. so you can do what needs to be done. today. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, owens corning ecotouch attik insulation is only $11.87 a roll.

these are critical days for mitt romney as he tries to build on his strong debate performance and answer, now as he gets a second look lingering questions about the tax plan that will get debated and how he will handle medicare. with me republican senator from texas kay bailey hutchinson. good morning. always good to see you. >> thank you, chuck. >> i want to start with first though mitt romney and the 47% remark. here's what he said to sean hannity last night. >> clearly in a campaign with

hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions now and then you say something that doesn't come out right. in this case i said something that is just completely wrong. i absolutely believe, however, my life has shown that i care about a hundred percent. >> senator hutchinson, took three weeks for him to say he was completely wrong. do you think that was two weeks too long, three weeks too long? >> well, i think that it was misinterpreted. people do say things in campaigns. you know he's been out there for two years and, you know, i would just say he is trying to get that behind him and i think he showed in the debate, chuck, that he does care about making sure that people are taken care of who can't take care of themselves. but his focus too is on creating jobs for those who want to work, who are out there unemployed, 23 million unemployed or under employed and he wants to

jump-start the economy to get it going again. and i think -- i hope that's the focus. >> let me ask you about his tax plans. se pledging to cut taxes or not? what is your understanding? he pledging that if he's elected president he is going to cut taxes, the amount of taxes that come into the federal government? >> number one, i think he is saying he is not going to increase taxes. i think that's where he and the president differ. the president wants to increase taxes. mitt romney wants tax reform that does not increase tax on anyone but yet gives incentives to people to hire, like making sure that the middle class does not get hit with the taxes and the regulatory burdens. he wants small business to hire people and that's why he doesn't want to talk about raising taxes on anyone. >> but do you understand how he gets there? >> he is not going to cut taxes. >> he has a very detailed plan

on tax reform as far as who would -- which taxes go away and what's been -- what's not there and obviously the romney campaign is upset when other people fill in the blanks but do you feel as if he needs to provide more detail explaining how he offsets the half a trillion dollars a year in tax revenue that goes away in his version of tax reform? >> well, i think he -- i believe he does that. he says he is going to make sure that more people are working so more people pay taxes. that is a dynamic scoring which is very important. >> but that's a hope. that's not a policy -- that's not anything you can sign into -- trust me. i think if a president could sign a law that said we will create more jobs that law would have been signed a long time ago. >> well i think he is looking at the fundamentals that are keeping people from hiring like the costs and taxes in obama

care. like the over regulation that is stifling small business. like the constant talk of new taxes on small business. i think he is saying we're going to stop that. we're going to stop the over regulation. we're going to stop the taxes. we're going to get this economy jump-started. we're going to open markets in trade in central and south america where we have real opportunities. but on the tax reform, i think it is important that he is pretty bold in his specifics in saying he is going to limit upper income people's ability to get all the deductions. but he is not going to do it on the middle class. i think he has been specific and i think that's just been kind of glossed over. >> let me fill in some blanks here. he has said he is going to get rid of the estate tax though and he has said that he is not going to raise the rate on nonincome from -- on income from dividend and capital gains which is of course the offset that -- the

chief feature of simpson/bowles, right? that is how they offset their lowering tax rate. they raise the rate on which people pay taxes on their income from nonemployment from things like dividends and stuff like that. so that's where -- that is where all the analysts come up and say they can't find the pot of money. >> well, i believe that what he is saying is the people who are getting really hurt right now besides the middle class small business person are retirees who are getting nothing in their ability to earn money on capital gains or dividends and they -- a lot of these retirees are really not able to make ends meet. we want to encourage savings in this country. we have the lowest savings rate of any country in the world just about. and i think keeping those taxes low and encouraging savings is part of an economic plan that's important. but i think what he is saying is he's not going to raise the rates, meaning he is not going

to raise taxes on anyone. but he is going to lower the deduction capability at the upper levels, not the middle class, and he is saying he is -- by putting people to work with dynamic scoring, which i think is very important, and that brings in the revenue, the old fashioned way with people working. >> dynamic scoring. that's always the bane of the congressional budget office existence. senator kay bailey hutchinson republican from texas always a pleasure to talk to you in the morning. thanks for coming on. >> thank you, chuck. >> wall street continued an upward climb thursday. how will the market react to the psychological drop in the unemployment rate? that is next. plus you have to hear it to believe it. that al gore presidential debate analysis. rarified air. that the reason for obama's rocky road in denver? we'll have a little fun there. first today's trivia question. name the last president to win re-election and have his party

pick up 25 or more house seats. that's -- why do i pick that number out? that is the number democrats have to get if they wanted to win the majority this time. first correct answer gets a follow friday from us. more coming up.

on our radar this morning, by the way, did you see this? it is all tied up in connecticut. the fbi finally arrives in benghazi and a cabinet member makes a condolence call. first though this new quinnipiac poll, a virtual dead heat in the connecticut senate race. we've been telling you about this, folks. don't sleep on it. while republican linda mcmann, look at this. a one-point lead. virtual tie with congressman chris murphy. 48-47. mcmann of course is a former ceo of the wwe world wrestling entertainment and she is far out

spend murg if i blanketing the airways with ads. poll found a majority of voters have seen her ads and consider them effective. in libya, the fbi finally has arrived on the scene more than three weeks after the deadly attack on the benghazi consulate. escorted by special operations forces fbi agents spent a number of hours collecting evidence that reporters haven't gotten and sifting through the debris before returning to triple m. a little snarky but it does seem amazing how many things where you reporters are able to walk in there, get stuff before investigators have. finally, federal investigators tell nbc news they are looking into whether the fatal shooting of a u.s. border patrol agent was a case of friendly fire. agent nicholas ivy was killed tuesday morning while on patrol near the mexican border. the homeland security secretary general janet napolitano will be in arizona today to express her condolences to the family. the investigation continues. how is wall street going to react to the latest monthly jobs reports? let's get the market rundown

now. becky quick is here. the psychological barrier number one of 8% but number two this massive amount of one month increase in the number of employed folks. >> yes. massive increase. okay. let's talk about the 7.8%. that is the number that main street is going to be watching. it is the number wall street is watching right now. the markets opening as we speak, chuck. it looks like the dow is going to be up by about 65 points. so a big improvement in terms of how people are going to be looking at that unemployment number. it got there because of the increase that we talked about. the 873,000 increase in the household survey. the household survey is the one that determines that unemployment rate. that is the biggest increase we've seen since 2003. massive influx in this number. the number of people who were employed was up sharply. the number of people who are unemployed dropped by 456,000. this is the big difference here. people are scratching their heads because this caught every economist on wall street by surprise. the top 88 economists that morgan stanley looks at, none of

them had an unemployment rate that they were guessing below 8%. this is a huge, huge surprise. a lot of people arguing back and forth about how this number takes place but look. this is a volatile number. it jumps all over the place. 7.8% is going to be the headline. the first time since january of 2009 that that number has dropped below what it was at that level and of course that ties right in with president obama's inauguration. so this is huge in a lot of different levels. people are going to argue this is a volatile number but wall street is going to take a positive note from it and the stocks, stock market is going to be higher today, chuck. >> all right. becky quick, cnbc's world headquarters. thank you very much. up next white house senior adviser david plouffe. "the daily rundown" will be back in 30 seconds.

well that reaction to the new jobs numbers and the first debate from white house senior adviser david plouffe in a few moments but first let me bring in my panel for the rest of the hour. jim gary, msnbc contributor and former dnc karen finney and the fix it man himself, chris cillizza, psychological barrier, below 8%. all the political scientists that talk about unemployment rates. they're all going to like hey i told you the 13 keys to this and seven keys to this. in all honestly 8% psychological barrier. >> this is the thing is i've

already gotten a million e-mails because i wrote something that said this is good news for obama when he needed good news. saying you have to look at the u 6. look, i understand all of those things. i am not saying i am an economist. you know who else is an economist? the average undecided voter. when they look at this they say, wow. it went down under 8%. is it great? no. if you ask president obama on the day he took office, hey, unemployment is going to be 7.8% the month before you have the secret election is that good, bad, or ugly? he would say that's ugly. but it's all context and perception. in my opinion if the trend line looks like it is moving downward obama can now say the trend line is moving downward. it at least allows him to make the argument things aren't perfect. i know that. not everything i did worked. but they're slowly but surely getting better. this helps that argument. >> karen, interesting though about the impact. remember you have the democratic convention as good as it got. friday the jobs report comes out. and it's a bad jobs report. >> that's right. >> and it stopped the momentum not at all.

>> right. >> but in fairness romney helped with that. he had his own gaffes. >> here you have, you know, romney, everything is moving in the right direction. great debate. the president. the democrats. like hammering, you said they're stopping you as you're going. what is wrong with the president? >> hey. >> it is one of these things. i think the press will cover it differently. does the average voter -- does it change their mind about the economy? >> the polls had already shown that people were feeling better about the economy in general so i think if anything this adds to that. i think the larger political issue is for romney. i've long felt that one debate performance alone was not going to be enough to be a game changer for him. it was more about they've got to have a good week after. this is going to blunt that a little bit. >> let me read the romney statement before i get to you, jim. this is not what a real recovery looks like. this is just now from the romney campaign. recreated fewer jobs in september than august and fewer jobs in august than in july and we've lost over 600,000 manufacturing jobs since president obama took office. if not for all the people who

have simply dropped out of the labor force the real unemployment rate would be closer to 11%. jim, we had correct on air in a graphic by the way about manufacturing, i had it wrong on another sheet of paper. manufacturing jobs went down last month two months in a row. what is interesting there, jim, is there was a standard press release line every republican had that now goes away which is president obama had promised unemployment would be below 8%. they had to delete that. >> now we can adopt the line the obama administration used in 31 of the past 33 months. it's important to not read too much into one month's jobs report. in light of that we look at these numbers, some are part-time but how about the halloween costume stores? any time it goes down it's good news. the divergence between the household and the establishment a little weird. >> right. >> you know, one of those things you'll take good news anywhere you can get it. i would be a little wary about anything that looks like spiking

the football on this, excessively celebration. obama can't go out there and say upon my orders we hunted down and killed the 8% unemployment rate. >> and republicans sanity seem seem -- can't seem to be too dour. >> i'm going to get a break in. david plouffe is next. the political panel will stick around. but first what is david plouffe going to eat after the interview? white house soup of the day is tomato base ill. follow the show on facebook. you're watching "daily rundown" on msnbc. i took dayquil, but i still have a runny nose. [ male announcer ] dayquil doesn't treat that. huh? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus rushes relief to all your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your runny nose. [ sighs ] thank you! [ male announcer ] you're welcome. that's the cold truth!

[ male announcer ] why do more emergency workers everywhere trust duracell...?? duralock power preserve. locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. now...guaranteed. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. i have as much experience in the congress as jack kennedy did when he sought the presidency. >> senator, i served with jack kennedy. i knew jack kennedy. jack kennedy was a friend of mine. senator, you're no jack kennedy.

>> by the way, flashback this day in 1988 one of the most memorable lines, a rehearsed line in the history of vice presidential debates. the great line wasn't enough. they lost to the bush/quayle ticket a month later. we'll have more on vice presidential history next week leading up to the debate between joe biden and paul ryan. fact check.org or politifact are going to give it a half true. i think we found out lloyd bentsen and jack kennedy weren't that close of friends. if president obama lost some momentum after wednesday's debate today's jobs report, could it bring it back? the first report to show unemployment rate below 8% since the very beginning of his presidency. david plouffe is a senior adviser to the president and of course the architect of the 2008 campaign. he joins me now. let me get your first reaction. how important psychologically is it do you believe to have an unemployment number below 8% the

month before the election? >> well chuck i don't think we should focus on politics today. this is obviously showing that we continued to recover from a horrible recession. we've created over 5.2 million private sector jobs the last 30 months as you pointed out the unemployment rate is now back to where it was in january of 2009. and i'd like to make the point though and i think we did talk about this debate wednesday, the recession wasn't an accident. there were policies and reasons that contributed to it. reckless wall street behavior, tax cuts for the wealthy unpaid for. these are the exact same policies mitt romney wants to return to. i think the president made that point wednesday at the middle class in our economy can't afford it. >> i want to play for you some reaction from your supporters at the rally in denver about the president and the debate. here's what they told me. >> i think he could have done better. >> i think that president obama is -- needs to put his gloves on

and fight back. >> i didn't know quite what was going on as far as, you know, maybe he's dealing with some crisis in the middle east. >> i think maybe he needs to rest. >> david, that is a lot of advice from supporters. what do you say to them? >> well, first of all, i was at that event in denver as were those great supporters of ours yesterday and that was a magnificent event. a lot of energy. we have a great organization in colorado. we are in wisconsin yesterday. they're fired up. they're going to work very hard. obviously, you know, we'll take some lessons out of that first debate. i think it was remarkable by the way that the first, other than some pleasantries the first words out of governor romney's mouth were untrue saying he didn't have a $5 trillion tax cut. we've seen the campaign as not just one moment, one day. we've had a consistency to it. a case we're mayking that the president has the right pathway for the country and the middle klatt. governor romney would be a return, the trickle down economies that failed the middle class and failed the country.

there is obviously an important debate next week between our vice president and paul ryan. we have another debate in 11 days. we look forward to continuing to make the case. >> you used the words i think dishonest or not making an honest argument. you just did it again. do you believe that mitt romney is intentionally lying about his record or lying about his plans? >> well, i think i -- he is. you know, chuck, this is the cornerstone of his entire campaign and his economic plan. it really was a remarkable thing. it would be like in 2008 if we got on the stage and said i don't want to end the iraq war and i'm not for health care reform. you know, i don't want to have a green energy future. it is an amazing thing. and the reason he is trying to obfuscate here is because that tax cut plan is something the american people don't want to support. a huge tax cut for the wealthy paid for by the middle class or blowing a hole in our deficit. the wrong recipe for both david, he says his plan is not a tax cut plan. and that, you know, he is going

to find a way to offset them. do you not take him at his word? >> it is a complete fairy tale. it is a 20% tax cut across the board for everyone. huge business tax cuts. everyone that looks at it agrees the numbers, 5 trillion over ten years, he says i'll pay for it with deductions he won't name. so, you know, the middle class and the president made this point in the debate, if you think somehow you're not going to bear the burden for this then take that risk and vote for governor romney. but again, this isn't just some issue that he threw out one day on the campaign trail. it's the center piece of his entire campaign. his economic philosophy. by the way, he made clear the other day that he is not going to ask the wealthy to contribute one single dime to help reduce our deficit or grow our economy. >> well, that was, i was going to play, this is what joe biden yesterday said about tax hikes and then what paul ryan said in response. i'll play that for you and get your response on the other side. >> you know the phrase they always use.

obama and biden want to raise taxes by $8 trillion. guess what? yes we do in one regard. we want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy. >> he asked if he and president obama want a trillion dollar tax hike and his response to himself was, yes we do. that's a direct quote, friends. well, virginia, no we don't. >> so is that a fair way to say it that, you know, the president is campaigning on raising, getting rid of the tax cut, raising taxes, a trillion dollars on the wealthy and the romney campaign no? is that a fair way to draw the line? >> we've been clear. we have tough choices to make in this country. you know, we've got investments to make, a deficit to close.

so what the vice president was saying is that the bush tax -- we want to continue middle class tax cuts. the republicans want to hold them hostage so we continue tax cuts for the wealthy. that is a fundamental difference. by the way with today's economic news we should continue to make progress. one thing we can do right away is pass a middle class tax cut so that, you know, 98% of the american people will have the confidence that their taxes won't go up next year. very important for consumer confidence. very important for our economy. and, you know, governor romney ought to tell his running mate paul ryan to call up the house republican leadership of what he is a member and get this done. so that we can give security and a guarantee to the middle class of this country and our economy that taxes aren't going to go up next year. >> do you believe the fundamentals of this campaign have changed from wednesday morning to today? >> i don't think so, chuck. obviously though we'll be able to evaluate that in coming days. my sense is, you know, we've got a pretty important lead in some

battleground states. >> you don't think that is going to clang? >> we don't think so. first of all you know the president's, you know, got a high support level. you know, 49, 50, 51 depending on the state. we like what we're seeing in terms of early vote and absentee ballot requests. we don't think that is going to change. we're going to be able to measure this. i'm sure the romney campaign says they're raising a lot of money. i'm sure that is true. our supporters are energized. in denver yesterday, in madison yesterday big crowds, enthusiastic crowds. but we'll see where we are next week. you know, my sense is the fundamental structure of the campaign is not changed. some of the reasons that we've been able to build a lead are around this sense of the middle class that the president has the right ideas for them. that hasn't changed. mitt romney doubled down on turning medicare into a voucher program, doubled down on rolling back wall street reform. he did some things on wednesday night that even though his performance was judged to be strong, i think we'll really -- will really cause his campaign

problems in the closing four and a half weeks. >> david plouffe, senior adviser of president obama, thanks for coming on this morning sir. >> see you chuck. trivia time. we asked you to name the last president to win re-election and have his party pick up 25 or more house seats. the answer? not lbj. i know some of you went there. it is is president ulysses s. grant in 1872. the republicans held on to the white house and picked up 64 seats in the u.s. house. thanks to our friend nathan gonzalez. who else is going to come up with this? him or wassermann right? do you have a political trivia question? e-mail us and we'll be right back with more from our panel and that al gore contribution to the presidential race. [ female announcer ] ready for a taste of what's hot?

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obama arrived in denver at 2:00 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started.

romney did his debate prep in denver. when you go to 5,000 feet -- >> exactly. >> -- and you only have a few hours to adjust -- >> that's interesting. >> i don't know. >> oh, boy. that was former vice president al gore with what you would call one of the more creative explanations for president obama's denver debate performance. let's bring back our panel. j jim, karen, and matt. what did you get out of that? >> i love this is not a time for politics. there's 30 days left before the election. everything is a time for politics. i get why he said it, absolutely, but, look, this is, i think, president obama needed something at the end of the week after what i think was not disastrous but certainly not a good debate performance. >> you said he had the worst

week in washington. >> he looked -- >> i would say -- >> that's a little -- >> i said he looked unhappy. >> we've been talking for the last couple days about all of the lies that romney told on the stage. come on, he might have had a good performance -- >> both candidates -- i disagree, both candidates obfuscate and frame it in the way they want it framed. barack obama's performance in that debate in my opinion was well below the standard that we've come to expect. >> jim, the romney campaign, they vigorously say this is not fair, tax policy center is making assumptions that are not there. tell me your assumptions then. and then there's silence. i say you haven't given me any. you're upset they have made a strawman. then build your own. >> the line you often here, well, i'm not going to negotiate with myself. you say if i'm going do this precise deduction -- >> you open yourself up to this issue. >> it does. on the $5 trillion figure what i saw kay bailey hutchison try to

do her best on this, fact check.org, poll lit fact, "washington post," cnn said it's not going to be $5 trillion. my favorite was stephanie cutter saying it won't be near $5 trillion. probably the second time since obama was saying no one on my campaign has called romney a felon -- >> she did not. she said if he did k3678d, that that's a felony. don't do that. don't call somebody a liar -- >> i didn't put the word felon into the sentence. >> so doing an act that is a felony is not the same thing as saying he's felon. it's not. then there's a report that said he might have caused a felony. >> i want to come back to the issue of the straw man and them not filling into the gaps. they have not filled in the gaps here. >> we are 31 days from the election. >> do they need to before the election? >> why? >> because there's clearly going to be $25 million in tv ads put behind this issue. >> and probably $30 million --

$30 billion -- $30 million worth -- >> you had say don't do it, don't add -- >> you end up getting hammered both in the election and then after the election presuming romney wins. he then is stuck with a circumstance he's already negotiated -- >> look, i think politically he's not going to do it. i would be stunned if he put a lot of meat on the bone. i think jim is right from a political perspective. if you haven't done it yet and you've taken as much flack for it as you have, why do it now because now you're still going to take all the flack for not releasing details all the way up until now -- >> and what happened is actually mitt romney did try to sort of -- he provided that answer about a week ago when he said, well, maybe we'll have a bucket and he did this -- and he speculated -- >> 17,000. >> all of a sudden said, okay -- >> they backed off of that and how did they back off on it? saying we're not going to do any kind of redistributive kind -- you know who got angry about that. i think because he had a good

performance people will take a second look. >> it's part of the second look. all right. let's end on a shameless plug now. shameless plug, happy note. jim, go. >> my son is getting a good citizenship award in his first month in kindergarten next week. aren't i fun, loveable, warm guy? >> my son needs to know he's supposed to get an excellent and not a good on his behavior report. >> my counsel sis, first female fighter pilot getting married. she's home safe from iran or the waters near iran. >> the waters near iran. >> sorry. >> at least that's our story and we're sticking to it. >> i'm going with the all in the family, my wife as anyone who knows who follows me on twitter is the head coach of the field hockey team, they are 42-9 in the last 2 1/2 years. >> how is she -- >> dynasty. >> catholic university. >> she's going to get poached. another university will come calling. >> that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." see you back here 9:00 monday morning. coming up next, my friend, chris

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